


The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall: A Series of Inexplicable Events

by silveradept



Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [14]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Commentary, Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Male Gaze, Meta, No OSHA compliance, Nonfiction, Past Rape/Non-con, Racism, Reckless Behavior, Sexism, Speciesism, Swearing, foolhardiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23894203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: A commentary read with excerpts of The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall, the second of the First Pass works, part of the Dragonriders of Pern novels.
Relationships: Theo Force/Jim Tillek
Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663699
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	1. The Survey: P.E.R.N.(c): Parallel Earth, Research Negligible

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Director's Cut of meta originally posted at [Slacktiverse](https://slacktiverse.wordpress.com).
> 
> Content notes for each chapter are in their respective posts, and all content notes in the work are in the tags.
> 
> Director's commentary will be rendered _[in a manner like this.]_

Welcome back. While we're here in the First Pass, we're taking a look at this collection of short stories that will look in on Landing and its successors and give us some extra perspective.

The spoiler data for this volume includes a timeline of the stories themselves, including the years of the deaths of major characters from Dragonsdawn, as well as some very interesting events that may or may not be covered in the stories. 

**The Survey: P.E.R.N. c: Content Notes: Persistence beyond sense**

This story opens with the survey team collecting data. More specifically:

> "It's the third planet we want in this pernicious system," Castor said in a totally totally jaundiced tone, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen.

Hang on a second.

  * Pernicious: 
    1. Causing much harm in a subtle way.
    2. Causing death or injury; deadly.
  * Jaundiced: 
    1. Affected with jaundice.
    2. Prejudiced; envious; as, a jaundiced judgment.



That's two adjectives that should not be together - potential death and prejudicial statements. Characters that are flip when death is possible generally don't end up doing well at all.

Furthermore, the survey team seems to be working under an artificial deadline.

> Looking up from her terminal, Shavva screwed up her face for a moment before she spoke. "I'm happy to report that that'll work out fine. Pity we can't have a look at the outer edge of the system," she added. "I'd love to have a look at those heavy-weight planets and the Oort cloud, but that can't be done when we've got to do an entry normal to the ecliptic. As it is, the slingshot will only give us ten days on the surface."

The explanation for the timetable is that Rukbat Three is the fifth of seven planets to be surveyed on this swing through space. Additionally, this survey team has had approximately one death for each of the planets that have visited, each with an initial at the end of their reports indicating whether the planet would be suitable for humanoids. Two on the last, one on the first, one on the third (and Castor injured), and none on a planet the probes had said was entirely lethal, so nobody went down there to die.

Probes are dispatched to see if Rukbat Three will support life, and a report dispatched back to the Federated Sentient Planets about the recent casualties and reports - using the names of the dead scientists as the names for the planets that claimed their lives. There's a short discussion about the presence of an Oort Cloud and a theory that suggests there's some form of space virus that kills life in planetary systems that comes from Oort clouds, with the same name as was used in Dragonsdawn to talk about whether Thread - now we know what the Hoyle Wickramasinghe theory is, at least. Thankfully, at least a few of the crew still subscribe to Occam, suggesting that absent observation of a space virus, meteoric impacts are probably the more likely reason worlds get destroyed.

The away team preps for a landing on the planet, with Shavva mentally cursing out Flora, the dead botanist, for not having packed proper supplies on the mission that got her killed, as she offers assistance to help pack supplies. After a run down of the modified and doubled duties of the surviving crew, the probes report back that the planet is very much Earthlike, so much as to warrant a beginning designation of P.E., Parallels Earth, the first half of Rukbat Three's eventual name.

Before we continue, though, I really want to know why this survey few hasn't aborted and noped their way back to their origin point. They've lost four people and a fifth is injured, and it's pretty clear they've fallen below the minimum threshold needed to do an effective job. Yes, they can do the work on an emergency basis by reassigning roles, but at some point, the mission commander probably needed to assess things realistically and give a great big NOPE and abort.

So what awaits the survey team if they do? Well they be prosecuted or court-martialed for a dereliction of duty? Would their employers refuse to pay them for the work they've done? Or worse, are the FSP such cheapskates that they've only given the survey team enough fuel that they have to complete all their gravity slings to be able to get back to where they came from? From what we have heard of the FSP (from our pastorally-biased colonists, admittedly), they're run by or in thrall to megacorps looking to squeeze every ounce of profit and resources our of their planets. We saw that the colonists were only able to raise enough funds the a one way trip. So there's a strong chance that the survey team can't abort but can only press on and get what they can before they all die. How little life means when you have so much of it to use, maybe. This is about half to three-quarters of a whatfruit's worth of WTF.

_[The FSP, at this point, seem to operate on the principles of[No OSHA Compliance](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoOSHACompliance), in that they sent a survey team to potentially dangerous worlds without the necessary backup personnel in case of danger or fatality, and they don't seem to care about the reports they're getting back that indicate that the survey has, in fact, been dangerous and deadly to the crew. It makes me wonder who the people are that are being sent out on survey, and whether the FSP actually gives a damn about whether they come back at all. Just about any time the FSP shows up on Pern, they're painted as absolute monsters in one way or another, and this story is only helping cement that idea, with the callous disregard for life they're engaging in here.]_

The strange circles in the vegetation are noted, but since the crew is so sparse, they think of it as a local fungus and launch the shuttle to investigate further. After a short piece on how Castor, the most experienced climber, feels that he could have prevented the most recent two deaths (by a landslide) if he had been uninjured, that is. There's a lot of feeling personally responsible for the deaths of others on this crew.

On the planet, the crew takes soil and rock samples as they try to puzzle out why there seems to be overlapping rings of growth in different generations of vegetation. Marine life samples get taken, but the team notes a lack of ruminant creatures and vegetation grazers on the land, although they do encounter creatures first described more like flying barges and a "ten-centimeter-thick, seven-meter-long example" of a reptiloid. And then we find out why those barges are called wherries:

> "Wherries, that's what they were called," he said suddenly that afternoon. "Vessels that were used to ferry stuff between the English isle and the European continent. Wherries, and call 'em the biggest life-forms seen in the report. Maybe the term'll stick." Liu rarely exercised that EEC team prerogative.

This is, in some ways, a testament to the large world built in these stories, that each of these prequel installments can reveal some of the mythology behind how things came to be in Ninth Pass Pern. That said, it would be nice if these bits and pieces were things from other worlds than Terra. We had a whole lot of Governor Emily Boll, hero of a non-Terra world, in the last book. She could have provided something to all of this.

The team also finds evidence of dragonets, by the cracked shells on the beach, but no actual dragonets, of course. Lots of insects, and evidence of the ruminants by bones in a tar pit, which does nothing to assuage the problem of the ruminants not being present in the present moment.

And some diamonds.

> Rough stones, one as large as Shavva's fist, were pried out of the soil. The team kept several as souvenirs; they were not particularly valuable otherwise, for the galaxy had produced many gemstones more exotic than these, though diamonds remained useful in technology for their durability and strength.

And, as if on cue, a reminder that there are other worlds out there. This does make Avril Bitra's plan to grab gems and hightail it back to civilization look a little less brilliant - if the galaxy has moved on from the precious gems and metals of Terra and the like, then she wouldn't be able to make it rich with the gems and metals she mines.

_[Not just less brilliant, past self, it makes Bitra's plan nonsensical. More so than usual, anyway, because Avril Bitra's plan was apparently first trying to become the ruler of the planet, then, when that failed, to grab a haul of precious gems and hightail it out of there, with the expectation that she could sell them at a profit in a market that apparently hasn't been all that interested in precious gems and metals for a good long time. Avril Bitra's motivations, whatever they are, certainly aren't logical and they work against her presence in those stories at all. Yet another instance of the author forgetting what she's already written because what's being written now works for now's plot, and now's plot is all that she cares about.]_

The team observes a very stinky creature, with no apparent eyes or mouth, get stuck by a needlethorn plant. Which they are intrigued by, because the plant doesn't indiscriminately fire needles in all directions, but only in response to a stimulus. After spraying it with a quick-freeze, the team captures a small specimen for examination later. And discovers the glow fungus that night, before being able to observe the dragonets at play, making a rather apt observation of them.

> "Sentient?" Shavva asked, wanting and yet not wanting those beautiful creatures to be the dominant sentient life-form of this planet.  
>  "Marginally," Liu murmured approvingly. "If they're leaving eggs on a shoreline where storm waters could wash them away, they're not possessed of very great intelligence."  
>  "Just beauty," Ben said. "Perhaps we'll find large and related types of the same evolutionary ancestors for you, Liu."

I think that describes the dragonets, and the eventual dragons, pretty well - and also the humans that transformed the dragonets into dragons without implementing safeguards into them.

The continued investigation of the circles supports the idea of meteorite impacts, especially since the circles are planet-wide, but the team is very worried that they can't find the actual meteorites that made the impact, and the pattern is wrong for a planet to have been whacked by space objects on a regular basis.

The northern continent has metals and gold, and also an interesting tree.

> ...a vigorous tree whose bark, when bruised in the fingers, gave off a pungent smell. That evening, she made an infusion of the bark, sniffing appreciatively of its aroma. Empiric tests showed it was not toxic, and her judicious sip of the infusion made her sigh with pleasure.  
>  [...Liu tastes it and approves, and Ben tastes it when it's ground and filtered like coffee...]  
>  "A sort of combination of coffee and chocolate, I think, with a spicy aftertaste. Not bad."

Yep, they discover the klah tree.

That pretty well seals it for Rukbat Three, with no casualties, and I appreciate someone actually testing the drink for toxicity before drinking it. With the track record the survey team has, this would turn out to be something that tastes fine, tests okay for toxicity, and then kills the drinker a couple days later, as it turns out that the chemical reactions in human stomachs create poisons, or something, but it was nice to have someone actually thinking about possible problems.

Rukbat Three's final designation is P.E.R.N. (parallel Earth, resources negligible), with a small c in the corner to indicate it is suitable for colonization.

> That is, if any colonial group wanted to settle on a pastoral planet, far off the established trade routes, and about as far from the center of the Federated Sentient headquarters as one could go in the known galaxy.

Which, coincidentally, will be exactly what the folks of Landing want.

That said, the survey team is recommending this planet for colonization despite the meteorological oddity that has just ravaged the planet. Even if it was a one-off, I would have thought evidence of a recent meteor shower would have been something to recommend more caution with regard to that planet. From what we see in Dragonsdawn, though, to the colonists, it seemed to come across as a curiosity of some sort, rather than as a possible issue for colonization. 

Also, I'm still not sure how the survey ship doesn't pass by the Oort cloud on the way in, or doesn't dispatch a probe or two to examine the interesting parts, after the comment early on that probes are in plentiful supply. They might not have received any useful information either, but the issue of probes being mangled by the Oort cloud would be noticed much earlier in, and possibly a connection made between the probe destruction and the impact circles on the planet. The reason Pern exists is because both survey and colony ship arrive in between a Threadfall, and only the colony stays long enough to discover the truth. It seems like a smarter option for colonization would be to send a second, longer-term survey out to any planets that seemed promising to stay for a full planetary cycle, just in case the summers turn out to bake everything dry or the winters cover the planet in six inches of ice. And then, once the cycle survey is done, one can make recommendations for colonization. It still wouldn't catch Threadfall, necessarily, but it would catch places that look nice and turn out not to be.

_[No OSHA Compliance, through and through. And also, it's a bit of a consistency across authors that when they write in the higher-tech eras, they're pretty consistently bad about the actual science parts, to the point where if "science fantasy" were a more widespread genre designation, it's the appropriate label for the entire series. The science is in service of the plot, rather than the plot trying to make extrapolations about science and develop from there. It's not a wrong approach, as such, and you couldn't just strip the science out of it at this point and make it a straight-up fantasy with a Predecessor Era of high technology. It's just very apparent, as we go through, that the strengths of the writing are when the series doesn't actually try for any sort of hardness in their science.]_

Next week, we get to talk to the dolphins, before they get their own book later.


	2. The Dolphins' Bell: Running Away Really Fast

Last time, we got to set what the survey crew that recommended Pern for colonization saw, and what they chose to ignore. A little more thorough investigation might have caught the Thread phenomenon, but there hasn't been anything on the planet that would recommend against a colony group arriving. This time, we take a look at what happened with the dolphins during a Fall.

**The Dolphins' Bell: Content Notes: Male Gaze, Racist Language, Possible Speciesism**

As with many stories of Pern, this one opens with an emergency - Jim Tillek rings the red alert bell at Monaco Bay, which brings an entire horde of dolphins to ask him what's going on, with Teresa taking the role of speaker for the dolphins. Jim points out the now-smoking volcanoes and asks the dolphins for help in getting all of Landing northward before it all gets covered in ash. The dolphins come back to the bay, along with much of the fleet of ships generally under Tillek's direction. Both mammals and wooden craft are put to immediate work loading material from Landing to ship out as far away from the ash cloud as possible.

> "Ye daft finnies, you'd burst yerselves," Ben cried, incensed, wagging his arms at the dolphins facing him to be quiet.  
>  "We can, we can, we can," and half the dolphins crowding the end of the wharf heaved themselves up out of the water to tailwalk in their enthusiasm. Somehow they managed not to crash into the seething mass of podmates who ducked out of the way underwater with split-second timing. Such antics were repeated by many, all across the waters of the bay.  
>  "Look what you started, Cap'n!" Ben cried in an extravagant show of despair. "Damned fool fin-faces! You want burst your guts?"

I'm guessing this is supposed to be more gruff affection than serious concern, but "fin-faces" and "finnies" don't sound like affectionate nicknames to me - more like co-opted insults.

Since we didn't see much of the dolphins in Dragonsdawn, with all the action focusing on the land rather than the sea, we don't actually know what most of the people of Landing feel about dolphins, or whether the people of Landing really thought that much about the dolphins at all.

As in Dragonsdawn, there's no real warning as to when the big mountain is going to go boom, so the evacuation plan is on in a hurry. While Tillek attempts to keep the air traffic around Monaco Bay from crashing into each other as they drop off things to be shipped northward, his staff start dividing up the labor and seeking out recording devices to put manifests on. The dolphins get a quick briefing on what they need, and start setting up lanes to streamline the cargo loading and to provide escorts and teams for the rafts and ships. Once they get the basics, the dolphins start immediately organizing and fetching the materials needed for the lane lines and deciding teams on their own as to who will escort and haul, much to the amusement of the humans, who apparently keep forgetting that dolphins are highly intelligent mammals with well-developed language capabilities, which is probably why they were good choices for mentasynth and genetic enhancement so as to be more easily able to communicate with the seafaring humans.

The humans have to also contend with the idea that dolphins, despite being able to communicate, are still mammals with different mindsets.

> "Busy, busy," Teresa said and looked happier than usual. "New thing to do. Good fun."  
>  Jan grabbed her left fin. "Not fun, Tessa. Not fun!" And she shook her finger in front of Teresa's left eye. "Dangerous. Hard. Long hours."  
>  Teresa's expression was as close to a diffident shrug as a dolphin could come. "My fun not your fun. This my fun. You keep afloat. Hear me?"

This could be handled horribly, if the dolphins were being shown as overeager pets that lived to serve, but they are instead established as independent entities that are just interested in the novelty.

Jim Tillek, on the other hand, has his hands full of people who don't understand that there's an order to these kinds of things to make them move as smoothly as possible.

> "Those clodheaded landlubbers are more trouble than anyone else," Jim said, striding landward on the wharf, raising his bullhorn to chew out some Landing residents who were adding household goods to the stack of red priority cargo. Some of the colonists who had remained at the Landing site as administrators felt they should have certain perks. Well, not in this crisis, they didn't. His patience worn out, he strode to the nearest sled, hauled the driver out, and ordered him to put back in what he had just unloaded. When that was done, Jim flew the sled to be unloaded with the other "space available" cargo at the far end of the strand. Then Jim took the sled, despite its owner's voluble complaints, and used it for the rest of the day to be sure goods carted down from Landing went into the appropriate areas. The sled also gave him sufficient altitude to keep an eye on what was happening everywhere on the Bay.

This kind of sequence is something that we didn't touch on much in Dragonsdawn, mostly because there was so much other plot going on, but I wonder how the actual provisional government functions here. Is it basically organized by military rank and that anyone of higher rank can basically do what they want? Or is there supposed to be some vestige of autonomy still left, such that people need to be convinced to do what they should? It becomes convenient for plot purposes to have the characters that need to act to be able to do so with impunity, but I don't think it was ever fully explained what sort of powers would be given to the declared administrators of Landing and their subordinates. Tillek wouldn't necessarily suffer consequences for this action, because he's in good with the magistrate and the governor, but it's doubtful anyone could just commandeer things. Unless we go back to the rule of "my stake, my absolute rules" as the reality, which would make me than a few people unwilling to evacuate using someone else's stake, especially if they can claim anything you brought into their place is now theirs to use as they like. It's the same fuzziness involved in figuring out how the Holds are administrated in the future.

After the end of a long day of hauling, the dolphins head off to eat, and the humans of Monaco Bay follow suit, then lay down to sleep. All too early, the dolphins ring the bell to signal a good morning, and the haul begins again, with the humans eventually having to breathe with oxygen in the sulfur and chlorine environment produced by the volcano's emissions. On day three, Tillek insists on a minimum size of craft participating in the haul, and learns, to his amusement, that the dolphin pods seem to be competing with each other on how much weight they can haul and escort in. One of his subordinates asks about the facilities available for unloading when arriving, is reassured that there will be sufficient space and things available, and points out that there will be, but only because they mentioned it now.

Then the big volcano erupts, with everyone having received the two hours of warning they were promised, scrambling to get as much out as possible, and then coming back to finish the job of hauling after the volcano quiets down enough. As the last ship gets ready to leave, Tillek decides the dolphin bell should be left behind for the dolphins, justifying it by saying Ezra Keroon will want to come back and check the "Aivas interface", something we haven't seen by name yet, and that the bell can be collected then.

The staging ground for the eventual haul northward is disorganized as well, but there's not a time crunch, so a conference between Benden, Boll, and Tillek (and crew) relays the death of Marco and Duluth attempting to avoid a collision, but turns to the need to organize the ships to run cargo, to figure out how to keep supplies running to the people in the South that intend to keep going, like miners, smelters, and several of the island groups well away from the volcanoes, and to keep accurate enough records so that everything is transferred and everyone knows where everything is at any given time. Both Keroon and Tillek swear off becoming the admiral of the navy of Pern and go to work. Which gives us an interlude with Tillek and Theo Force, one of the dolphineers, where Tillek offers some Terran naval history after giving Theo a once-over:

> Jim had an eye for a shapely leg, even one generally showing scars from many brushes with underwater obstacles. He was also becoming accustomed to Theo's subtly attractive face. Well into her third decade, she was not a conventionally pretty woman, but her rather plain features nevertheless indicated her strong character and purposefulness.  
>  [...Jim sets up his tale...]  
>  Theo never found Jim Tillek boring, especially when he started yarning. She knew he had sailed every sea on Old Earth and some on the newer colony planets, as well, in between his interstellar voyages as the captain of a drone freighter. Over the past few days she'd had a chance to admire the qualities of a man she'd barely chatted with before. Now, keeping as watchful am sure on their convoy as he did, she listened with pleasure as he warmed to his tale.

No, wait, the history lesson can wait, because this is still a trend that's a problem in these books. Women described as classically or exotically beautiful, like Kylara, Pona, and Avril Bitra, are all mean, scheming villains working against the protagonists. Women that are plain, scarred, or otherwise flawed turn out to be virtuous, loyal, and attractive. There's a big screaming "beauty is evil" message here, which is both Older Than Feudalism and a shitty message to send. Even if you're trying to appeal to readers that would love to see the popular, pretty, and shallow characters at their school be knocked off the top of the social ladder. It's only been once that there's been an actual Mean Girl Squad, but there's still been plenty of situations where the pretty girl is the evil one.

Furthermore, notice how Theo is described in terms of body and male gaze, instead of her work as a dolphineer, while Jim is described in terms of accomplishments and storytelling abilities, instead of his features. Tillek is falling for a plain and virtuous woman, Theo is enjoying the company of an accomplished and charming man.

_[It's a narrative strain that women who are favored by the narrative are almost invariably described as being pretty, but not beautiful, or plain, but pretty in some way, such that you can figure out who the villain is in any given Pern story by looking for the woman described as the most conventionally beautiful. The next really big example will be the comparison between Aramina and Thella, but you can see it in small ways everywhere you look.]_

Although that woman has the ability to chew out someone if she wants to. After Jim regales Theo with the story of the evacuation of Dunkirk during the Second Great Terran War, he spots a ship falling out of formation and sends Theo to bring them back in line.

> Theo and Dart reached their destination, and he could almost hear the blistering reprimand she was issuing. She had her arms over the rim of the craft, gesticulating to leave no doubt in the young skipper's mind as to where he had erred.

Of course, if such a thing were turned onto Tillek himself, the narrative would probably characterize it as something quaint or female or cute, instead of something authoritative or intimidating.

Bad weather forces the flotilla to shelter at Paradise River Hold, which gives the plastics engineers opportunity and time to design and manufacture ways to protect sails and cabins without doors from Threadfall, as well as a way of protecting people from it as well.

> ...plastic headgear, in a wide conical shape, made with wide weals and outward sloping sides - wide enough to cover most shoulders - with a high crown, to fit on the head, tied under the chin. Once the people were in the water, buoyed by the compulsory life vests everyone wore, these conical "coolie hats" would deflect Thread into the water, where it would drown or be consumed by the fish that invariably arrived wherever Thread feel into the seas. Even the dolphins were known to partake of what they considered an unusual food.  
>  The Paradise River contingent thought Ika's cone hat a definite improvement over the sheets of metal they were used to using for protection of they were caught out in Fall. Overcome by all the praise, the slender Eurasian insisted that she could not take credit for the design.  
>  "Well, it's a bloody good adaptation of a - what did you call it? - coolie hat," Andi said stoutly, "and it'll work. Won't be too hard to turn out once we set the matrix for the design." And she turned back to that task.  
>  "We're lucky we have people of such differing backgrounds," Jim told the embarrassed Ika kindly. "You can never tell when something as simple as straw hats from rice paddies on Earth can turn out to be life-saving on Pern. Good thinking, Ika! Cheer up, child. You've just saved our lives."  
>  She managed to send him a shy smile before she retreated one again, but her husband, Ebon Kashima, strutted about the camp as if he had thought of the gear.

Uh...

_[That's a Cocowhat, there.]_

Surely the people of the future know that "coolie" has been used as a racial slur for much of Terran history, and that even if one colloquially would have called it with that name when the book was written, the people in the actual future would likely be beyond that phrase and uncomfortable with its use, with the way that people generally advance past slurs and insults as they become more accepting of diversity.

Speaking of diversity, Tillek praising it after using a phrase like that is a serious gear-grinder for me. The narrative assures us that Ika is just overwhelmed by all the attention, but I wonder whether she's also embarrassed that everyone is calling the design by such a racist name. Especially when other names would be available to use. "Cone hat" or "Thread helmet" would work just as well. There's no need to call it by such a name.

_[Furthermore, at least nominally, didn't the colonists ditch as much of that unacceptable race commentary as they could? Not that it actually happened, as Red Hanrahan was wont to be chastised about, but this is one of those situations where the present has leaked through into the future. Not that we actually expected Pern's colonists to have a society where race and belief didn't actually mean anything, given how the nomadic folk were forcibly put on the colony ship, but it would be nice if someone at least made a gesture toward "hey, this is a terribly racist thing, perhaps we could not call our Thread helmets this?" instead of everyone enthusiastically using the colonialist and racist terminology and expecting the East-Asian named Ika to be pleased and proud that her design helped bring back a racist term against South Asians, even if it is nominally good at keeping people from getting dead by Thread.]_

As things go, there's a small concern about whether self-preservation will be enough to get people in the water when Thread falls, and the assembled captains start "brainwashing" (yes, that's the word in the text) their crews to make sure they're going to get in the water, with their hats and vests on, under threat of discipline and demotion if they didn't.

At this point, right before the ships set sail again, as the last of their protective equipment is produced and set into place, we'll take a break.


	3. The Dolphins' Bell: Full Stop

Last time, the flotilla of ships carrying supplies from Landing navigated their way toward their destination. The worst and deepest-water travel is yet to come, and the crews haven't yet field-tested their recent decision to provide plastic helmets to everybody to protect them from Thread while they wait out any Falls that happen on the journey.

**The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall: The Dolphins' Bell: Content Notes: Reckless Behavior**

The ships get underway again at this point, with the bigger ships eventually outdistancing the smaller ones on the way. Tillek continues to tell stories, thinking that he enjoys telling Theo because she listens. There's a snark possible here about young women being forced to listen to old men talk, but the narrative told us earlier that Theo likes hearing Tillek's stories. This time, the tale is of refugees from Asian nations sailing away from war on whatever they could get to float. Emergencies keep calling Theo away before Jim can say too much, and then Tillek and Keroon both notice that there's going to be Thread in their vicinity and decide that now is a good time to test the safety equipment, since they're only going to be exposed for about 30 minutes. Everybody jumps into the water to see whether or not it's going to work. To pass the time, Tillek asks Theo whether she liked being a pilot more than a dolphineer (no), and whether she wanted to be a dragonrider (no, because she felt too old). When Tillek mentions that she's not old, she points out that he's not exactly young. He's in his fifties, and she's in her twenties, so clearly he's just old.

_[This is after telling story about the evacuation at Dunkirk, so plenty of Old Terran History has survived quite nicely into the far future to be used as an example when needed. At the same time, while Jim Tillek is trying to paint this as a heroic and important evacuation, we still need to remember this had to happen at all because the Pernese colonists didn't have enough early warning for volcanic activity, and apparently didn't really think hard about the possibility that they might need an evacuation plan in case the volcano decided it didn't like them being close by. They have Fort, which is where they will eventually end up, and spread out from there, but I still question the decision that, of all the places they could land, the colonists decided they wanted to be in the blast radius of several volcanoes. When they had all sorts of lovely plains and other, less dangerous, spaces to settle in first.]_

Thread passes without incident or damage, so the new helmets appear to be working, and Tillek thinks that he's really enjoying Theo's company.

> She was a sort of...comfortable person. He grinned again. That was not the sort of compliment a woman would appreciate.

I still don't think you know what women want, Jim. Some people might take comfortable as a compliment for good friendship. Maybe not if you're trying for something more than that, but that kind of thing requires reciprocation and mutual interest.

The next day produces a sudden tropical storm that lightning-blasts his ship's main mast and throws lots of waves at the ship that threaten to capsize it, roll a few of the smaller boats, and generally wreck and sink the cargo that was on board all of the ships. Once the storm is gone, Jim has a broken arm, just about everyone else has injuries, and Fort sends out sleds to collect the severely injured and transport them ahead. Nobody is dead immediately, although some have life-threatening injuries and conditions, and the rescue of the cargo proceeds as much as possible, so as to get it up on the beach and beyond the tide lines. Eventually the medics catch up to him and knock him out with a hypospray (yay, technology), remarking that he really doesn't know when to take a break.

When he returns to consciousness, he's in a makeshift shelter with Theo, both of whom are supposed to be resting and relaxing, and while Theo calls for food, Tillek has to get up and see what's going on, which only proves to everyone that he has to recover, which apparently means staying put, because Theo's dolphin refuses to work with someone else, and Benden suggested that Tillek would have problems with anyone trying to sail his ship. (In context, the shuttle carrying Emily Boll has crashed and she is now recovering from her injuries.) So they both get escorted to Tillek's ship and he is set to the supervisory role while another captain does the tasks of assigning people to recovery efforts and reloading the cargo the dolphins retrieve. He enjoys Theo's company, does some of the cooking, and then, several days later, has both a communication from the other captain and from the dolphin that another strong storm is coming, so Theo and he make proper preparations against a new storm. The storm itself catches them a little before they have fully prepared themselves for rolling decks.

> Just as she reached the cabin, the **Cross** pitched again and Theo fell against him. Instinctively, he grabbed and held her close, a lifetime of experience helping him to balance them both against the erratic movement. She wrapped her left arm about his waist, hugging herself to him. He could feel her trembling and the smoothness of her skin against his, and he tightened his arm, surprised by a number of conflicting and long-forgotten emotions.  
>  "It won't be as bad a blow as the other one," he said to reassure her. Though why Theo would need reassurance...  
>  "I'm not scared, you iggerant old fool," she said in a taut voice. Switching her left arm to around his neck, she hauled his head down to hers and kissed him so thoroughly that he lost his balance and they both tumbled into the cabin as the **Cross** pitched them forward. Nor would Theo let go of him even after they had fallen across one of the smaller bunks.  
>  "Your legs? Your arm," Jim began without lessening the pressure of his arm around her. "I'd hurt you..."  
>  "There are ways, damn it, Jim Tillek, there are ways!"  
>  Despite the rolling and pitching of the **Cross** , which sometimes worked to their advantage, he discovered that indeed there were ways and very little hurting. In fact, Jim decided that the next hour could be termed therapeutic - among other adjectives that he had no occasion to employ for too long a time.

The mechanics of having sex on a moving ship cause a bit of a headtilt, even before one then adds into the situation the various injuries and recovering broken bones that would add to the difficulty of finding a position and avoiding grabbing or landing on something that can't take the pressure or the weight. I'm really not sure how the two of them could have had sex without one of them crying out in pain.

But at least there was something that passed for consent between them.

_[As experienced sea-hands, now that I think about it, the sway is probably not as terrible a thing as I'm portraying it to be, and there's a certain amount of "if things slide out, we can get them back in again" involved here, but I still stand by the likelihood that someone is going to aggravate an injury trying to have sex in the middle of a storm, on the principle that they'll react instinctively to something and use the broken arm or the injured legs or some other things that would make this not very pleasurable of a time for them. But what do I know?_

_Also, it's still a terrible thing that on Pern, the instances of actual consent (or at least something close enough to pass as consent) are so rare that they have to be counted and mentioned specifically.]_

The next morning, Tillek and Theo are both cleared for light duty, which seems to be deciphering bar codes on the cargo the dolphins bring back. And spending pleasant evenings with each other, until a dolphin gives birth (Carolina gives birth to Atlanta), the new masts are put in place on Tillek's ship, and Benden recounts the first flying of the Dragonriders of Pern, which Benden found an amusingly impudent title and not so amusingly recounts the demands Sean made for medical supplies before he would meet with Benden about anything.

After that, the voyage begins again, with repaired and reloaded ships, making the continental crossing without incident, finding places to store all the ships near Fort, and then discussing with Theo about what the future holds.

> "A honeymoon?" And Theo giggled.  
>  He gave her a quick hug. "Then next year..."  
>  "There'll be three of us, Jim..."  
>  He pushed himself up to look down at her." You don't mean..."  
>  She laughed in great delight at his surprise. "Told you you weren't beyond it, man. Thought I might be, but seems I got in under the wire."  
>  At that point, he forgot what other plans he had intended to discuss with her and knew that his decision to harbor the **Cross** was for the best possible reason.

There's a trend in Pern stories to end the narratives on births or pregnancies, which I think is supposed to be a sign of hope or progress or some other positive thing, especially following the often-preventable disaster or accident that precedes it. It's not quite a requirement for a happily ever after, but it does seem like babies is the go-to ending for these stories.

And if it ended here, there would be a pretty big WTF about the bell that was left behind in Monaco Bay. After all, the story is titled "The Dolphins' Bell", so something should happen, and in the last paragraph, there's the sound of a bell and the happy sounds of the dolphins that now have a bell to ring again. It's not the actual bell from Monaco Bay, but another one that came on one of the other ships. Which suggests the angst and woe over the Monaco Bay bell was...misplaced at best, if everyone knew there was another bell in storage. As a symbol, which is how it was described as everyone left, it has a little more weight, but essentially this story has almost nothing to do with dolphin bells. Which makes it a very curious title to have - something like "Second Crossing" would have been better, so that when it gets mentioned in the story, it's also a title drop and a call forward.

So that's two stories down, and three more to go. Next week, we'll check in with the clan that produced Sorka and her many siblings.


	4. The Ford of Red Hanrahan: Where All The Worldbuilding Happens

Having spent a couple weeks on the seas with Jim Tillek and his flotilla of cargo ships accompanied by dolphins, it's time to take a look in on the Hanrahan clan and how they are integrated into Landing society.

**The Ford of Red Hanrahan: Content Notes: Foolhardiness**

The story opens with Red consulting with Benden about how to take care of the horses correctly, since the cave systems at Fort are causing thrush from wet bedding. Red suggests moving them to sandy-floored caves near Fort Weyr, now five hundred dragonriders strong, giving us a clue that this story is somewhere in the future after Dragonsdawn. After Red finishes all his justifications, Benden says he's okay with them moving out, surprising Red.

> Paul Benden indulged in a rare laugh, which made the big vet realize how much Paul had altered in the past nine years. Unsurprising, when one thought how many burdens he had assumed since Emily Boll's death from fever three years earlier.

We also learn there's a new settlement, South Boll Hold, named in Emily's memory, and that Benden is very much in favor of spreading the colonists out as far and as fast as possible.

> Red knew that Benden feared another of the lightning-swift fevers that had decimated the Hold three years before.  
>  [...Benden explains that he won't risk any colonists to Thread, even though he needs to have more settlements as fast as possible...]  
>  The old, the very young, and pregnant women had been the most vulnerable, and before the frantic medical team could develop a vaccine, the disease had run its course, leaving nearly four thousand dead. Nevertheless, the living had been immunized against a resurgence. Though all possible vectors - food, ventilation, allergies, inadvertent toxic substances from the hydroponics unit - had been examined, the trigger for its onset remained a mystery.  
>  The fever had caused another problem: a large number of orphaned children between eight and twelve years. These had to be fostered, and although there had been no shortage of volunteers, a certain amount of reshuffling had had to occur to find psychologically suitable matches of adult and child.

Ah, another mysterious fever that ravages the known world. Although, in this case, a proximity epidemic makes much more sense than the virulent flu in the Sixth Pass going worldwide.

_[Sometimes I forget that plague and infection is the go-to element in McCaffrey stories, regardless of whom is at the helm, because Moreta/Nerilka has one, there's this one in the First Pass, and there will be two in the Todd books, one for dragons, one for humans. It makes for some extra-special fun times when you're doing commentary in the middle of an event that would probably match up very nicely with what a Pernese plague does, and the kind of devastation that it wreaks on the population. Because in this particular time, being close to each other is how things get transmitted. Some of the original commenters note the numbers themselves don't actually line up, but, as usual, science gets sacrificed for plot. And plague often gets used as a way of conveniently getting rid of characters that have served their narrative purpose, so Emily Boll and Ezra Keroon are quietly shuffled off from plague and complications thereof, while Paul Benden is still around because they need his leadership skillz. And, now that I think about it, the shuttle crash took Boll out of commission there, as well. It's not quite a fridging, but it is a regular pattern that Emily Boll, who is supposed to be both war hero and excellent Governor, keeps getting knocked out or put out of commission for things where her expertise would have been the most useful thing for the colonists.]_

Additionally, I like the origins of the foster system coming out of the necessity of raising the orphans and then transforming into the more feudal system we see later on. Two paragraphs after the quoted bit, the original isolation wards for the fever patients have been transformed into classrooms, workshops, and dormitories after three years, which is also the origination of the Crafthalls, it looks like. This history feels more organic than other stories of the past of Pern, perhaps because it seems like many of the things we think of as historical traditions with great rituals and ceremonies usually started with a couple people getting together and trying to solve a problem they had.

Returning to the story, Benden asks who Red is taking with him, and that leads to a recounting of the great success of his line, both with him and Mairi and with Sean and Sorka. "The regiment" will be accompanying a full grouping of people going to the new place to help support the operations of the Weyr and its dragonriders and to establish a full suite of operations in its own right. Benden approves of the team and compliments it on the diversity of both professions and ethnic makeup, and then pops his eyebrows at one of the requests.

> Paul continued reading, then looked up in surprise. "An airlock door? What're you going to use that for?" he demanded.  
>  "Well, it isn't going to be used for anything else, and it'll make an impressive entrance: also impregnable," Red said. "I took the dimensions last time I was down in the storage cellars. Ivan and Peter Chernoff dissected the frame panel, too, which fits in the opening as if meant to be there. Seated it in some of that hull-patching compound Joel couldn't find another use for. Peter even rescued the floor and ceiling bar holders. A spin of the airlock wheel, and we can drive home the lock bars top and bottom so that nothing can get past that door once it's closed. Cos Melvinah called it a neat bit of psychological reinforcement."

That sounds familiar. Maybe Menolly noticed something very similar in the Harper Hall during a Threadfall, maybe, because it was different than the barred door of Half-Circle Sea Hold? Another nicely dropped piece of mythology.

As it turns out, not only is Red moving out, so is Ongola, with a good site selected, but that requires finding a way over or through a mountain range. And there needs to be more spreading out, because the cramped quarters are causing temper flare-ups as well. Benden's justice had been the thing keeping it all together.

We find that Mairi, Red's wife, has just had her ninth child, which, according to her, means she has three more to go, and according to him, means she's done. He has apparently ensured this, as well, meaning there's still enough knowledge and tech to cause either vasectomies or tubal ligations, despite the failing power packs. When Benden asks Red about a name for the new Hold, he shrugs and says they'll think of something.

As Red leaves, we find that he has plans both for his modified oxen and for breeding three strains of horses - a plow-horse, a racer, and a long-distance endurance horse, to basically be _the_ horses of Pern, building himself an empire where everyone buys his horses because they're the best. The word buy seems rather telling about how far into some form of feudalism we already are from the pseudo-socialism of Landing.

The last thing of note is that the fire lizard population has been dwindling as the queens and others go South to mate and lay eggs, with only some of them returning to the north.

As Red gets underway, he reflects that the Aivas interface is still intact, despite all the volcanic ash and eruption that has, at this point, completely covered the original Landing settlement, and that knowledge helped Ezra Keroon die in a peaceful sleep from the same fever that killed Boll and so many others. Red considers naming his new Hold Keroon in Ezra's memory, before an issue with his wagon train requires his attention and stops the reverie. A note from the proposed site mentions a higher than usual river height from recent rains, and that makes the double meaning of the word "ford" suggest what the danger will be in this story, since "ford" refers to both the place where one crosses a river and the act of crossing the river, and in literature, these are usually made extra perilous because of floodwaters. If Red wants to cash in on his business dreams, he's going to have to think smart.

The issue at hand is that some of his beasts are developing sores related to their harnesses not being flexible and softened enough to be used. After a long delay in making sure all the animals are cared for, the party continues on, and at their stop point for the night, Red softens the harnesses more to see if that won't help.

The rain continues and intensifies the closer the train gets to the chosen ford, and by the time they get there, they can see that the river is higher than usual.

> "We've reached the river, Dad," Brian yowled from the darkness ahead. "And it's in spate."  
>  Red groaned. He'd wanted to make the crossing as much because the land on the other side was **his** as because the farther bank was a better site for an overnight camp. He briefly considered waiting for daylight, but discarded the idea almost immediately. The flatter land on this side of the river was already under an inch or so of water. If the river was this high now, then by morning the water world be too high for the wheels of the smaller sleds. They might float away downstream of they got loose. And this was the best ford within klicks - if he could find it in the murky darkness.  
>  Now, so close to his own private place, he was loath to let high water bar his way.

Perhaps it's because I've played enough Oregon Trail and other games where trying to ford a river in the middle of a flood is a Total Party Kill without a saving throw, but this seems like a very bad idea for a group that is mostly unversed in how to do it to attempt. There's supplies still in the wagons to try and wait for the river to go down some. If need be, Sean or Sorka could be politely asked to airlift the party over the river, as a favor, even though Sean never wants to use the dragons in that way.

Red, so far, had always been portrayed as a person not likely to take large risks with animals, so that he seems hellbent on getting over the river feels rather weird.

In terms of plot, Red borrows a lantern and tries to find his marking stones that showed where the ford was, but the river is already too high for him to see them. Brian asks about undercurrent, which makes Red even more impatient, rather than being willing to spend some days waiting on the river. He and Brian both step into the river on their horses and manage to find the ford and start crossing, with Red giving instructions on what to bring back from the new settlement once they get across - lots of light to show the way, and lots of rope to tie everyone securely against the currents. After both men get across, narrowly avoiding falling off the ford each, Red gives Brian his lantern and sends him off to the new Hold, while he comes back across the river and supervises setting up some lanterns as beacons of where to enter the river, and then spacing riders with lanterns along the way as he sets up a rope line across the river for everyone else to follow. After another near-miss, Red starts everyone across the river, realizing that there's basically no room for a mistake when it comes to the largest wagons.

Things go well for the most part, except the dogs need to be tied on to avoid being swept away, and the goats don't seem to want to be on point, but the fire-lizards can keep herding the goats. Until...

> Suddenly, without any warning, and before the goats had started climbing out on the far side, Snapper and the other fire-lizards let out a racket of dreadful sounds and disappeared.  
>  "What the hell?" Red said, totally surprised and vastly irritated by the abrupt abandonment. Snapper had always been reliable... He pushed King forward to deflect the lead nanny from yet another wayward plunge and was relieved to get the little herd safely out of the river.

So far, so good, but the river is rising quickly and the oxen teams are refusing to go into the water. At least until Sean shows up (and Carenath spooks the horses, as always) and lends the sheer terror animals have of dragons as a better motivator than the fear of the river. Red and Sean manage to get everyone across, even though some of the smaller sleds have to be roped on to prevent them from floating away and taking the oxen with them.

Sean and Red have a chat on the other side - with the fire-lizard behavior, Red is suspicious, and Sean sounds very choked up about something. Mairi asks about Sorka, and is reassured she's fine. Sorka is described thus:

> Although Sorka, queen Faranth's rider, was pregnant again, she generally had no more trouble with parturition than her mother did

Which has been the running joke about the Hanrahan clan - they seem to be hyperfertile and yet able to birth all of those children. For a colony world, I suppose that's not a bad thing, but before the colony, I would wonder about whether Mairi had seen a doctor about her ability to get pregnant so easily and readily.

Sean informs Red that there's Threadfall coming in the morning, and the reason for everyone's emotional distress:

> "Alianne died in childbirth," Sean sniffed, rubbing his nose and eyes, giving way to the misery he had bottled up. "Chereth...went... **between**. Like Duluth and Marco."  
>  [...hugs all around...]  
>  There had been many injuries, some serious enough to end the fighting abilities of six dragons, but only four deaths: actually an astounding record, of which Sean as Weyrleader had every right to be proud. But the loss of a queen magnified the tragedy. No wonder Snapper and the others had disappeared. They had gone to the Weyr to mourn.

There's a little about the profound grief that riders go through, and presumably, that dragons go through, on the deaths of their partners, but the grief of everyone else around seems to get elided as to what happens with dragons and riders when they lose their own. The strong telepathic bonds would seem to magnify the emotional content of grief, just like everything else. I wonder whether depression is a common occurrence after a death in the Weyr.

_[One of the comments to the original said that this is the first recorded instance of a dragon going one-way to hyperspace when their rider dies, which we knew about because we peeked in on Kitti Ping and her plan for the dragons, but if neither Sean nor Sorka knew about this, would be extra devastating and probably require some additional thought on their part about what that might mean for their aerial fighting force. And whether forming the telepathic bond in the first place would be worth the cost of what happens when the bond is severed. Although, because of the way that bond becomes an overriding influence on everything, the right people to ask about it would be people who haven't already Impressed dragons or fire lizards.]_

Red and Mairi make the final crossing and Red is persuaded to lie down for a bit, which turns into a nap that lasts long enough for the train to arrive at the new Hold. Red's unhappy at missing out on seeing his new Hold for the first time, and insists on getting all the animals into their barns before he thinks about sleeping again. His animals are safe, and so Mairi manages to get him to bed. When he wakes up, he realizes that there was a lot more that needed to be done than he saw, and that annoys him again that he was told to sleep whole others did work. The night's dinner has conversation about the dead queen rider, because death in childbirth is apparently still rare, and how Sean got the ox teams to move across the river, but it ends with music and dancing after the food. 

Red then sets to the work of making a cave system and adjoining land a Hold, boring, planting, herding, finding seams of coal, and the rest, using his off time to develop more detailed maps of the land that was theirs, to see if there are more places that the population can expand into, and to possibly site craft halls and places where his sons could have their own land. Nothing about daughters, of course, with the assumption that they'll be paired off to someone else's land unspoken but clearly present.

Red also benefits from the talents of good engineers that have developed heating systems for warming the caves and that can set up and maintain a solar power system for heating water, making hot baths and hot washing possible. (Although not explicitly said outside of Red himself, I strongly suspect those two items improved morale significantly - hot baths and warm homes make things much better.)

Everything proceeds apace, proving that you can start and make success in a Hold in a hurry, right up to the day that the airlock door is ready to be fitted into place. The only thing missing is a name. Keroon was discarded, Hanrahan Hold dismissed immediately for the feudal implications thereof (and yet, that is exactly where things end up, and the author knows this), and Red is still thinking about it even as the guests arrive and the cooking is underway for the feast that will accompany the momentous occasion.

Almost all the guests, anyway, as Benden sends ahead a message that he can't find the ford and Red goes out to meet him and show him the way across. Benden, Ongola, and a full retinue, including the daughter of one of Red's horse-breeding rivals, are all there and end up safely ensconced in the new, still doorless, Hold.

Once safely together, we get some more worldbuilding and mythology explanation.

> "Sorka and Sean said they'd be here to watch the Dooring and join us in the feast. And..." Red paused, looking from Ongola to Benden. "Once we get producing, I plan to send the Weyr a tithe of all we grow and make. They've enough to do without having to forage for food, as well.  
>  [...Benden lets on about how much help the dragonriders have been to keeping Fort stocked...]  
>  "Still and all, they shouldn't have to scrounge for provisions," Red said. "The Hold should supply the Weyr that protects it."  
>  "I shall tithe from my holding, as well," Ongola said, his deep voice making his words a solemn vow.  
>  "Alianne's death has certainly made all in Fort aware that we're along a great deal from these young men and women," Paul went on, "and they've meet the challenge magnificently. I had a chance to discuss support personnel with Sean, and he's suggested that we send him some of the older fosterlings to take over maintenance and domestic chores. They'd be available, too, as candidates for the new eggs. I got Joel to spring loose enough supplies so additional personnel won't be a burden on the Weyr's resources. They've got space, we've got too many warm bodies..." He gave a wry smile. "Alianne's mother is staying on, to help rear the grandchildren. She's widowed and says the place needs a firm hands in its domestic management. The queen riders don't have enough time, especially if they've a broody queen."

So in a very short span of conversation, we have the Search, the Hold tithe, and the headwoman's position established. Which, I'd guess, is to make things seem less like the reality of the dragonriders holding such great power that they can demand any sort of setup they would like to have and more of "a grateful populace thanks their heroes by making their lives easier." That the two of these are very close to each other is usually not lost in any population that has a military force.

Also, I think Red's use of the word _tithe_ here is significant, as I think it implies that the mythology of the Dragonriders of Pern is already so well established that they're thought of as religious figures. Most of the definitions I find in a quick sweep specifically call out religious or spiritual contexts to the products offered as a tithe, and indicate tithes are often used for the maintenance of the clergy and the performing of religious actions. What's really happening is the beginning of a protection deal or a mutual defense pact - the Holds pay in their fees, and in return, the dragonriders protect them and their holdings from Thread. This could easily be structured as a business transaction, especially if one wanted to haul out stereotypes of Sean Connell's Traveller heritage. Yet we are already in religious territory here, even though the colonists profess no religion. I find it very interesting that at any point in the future of Pern the dragonriders aren't treated as gods walking along men, at least in an official capacity.

All that's left for the plot is for the door to be put in place and ceremonially tested, which happens without issue, and for the Hold itself to be named.

> "Admiral, Commander, Weyrleaders, one and all, be welcome to-" He stopped short, a grin suddenly broadening across his face as inspiration seized him. "Be welcome to the Hold of Red's Ford. In the old language, Rua Atha."  
>  "Ruatha!" Mairi cried out in her clear voice, her eyes looking up to his for his approval of that elision. "Oh, that's a splendid name, Rua Hanrahan!"  
>  "To Ruatha Hold!" he shouted.  
>  **"To Ruatha Hold!"** was the roar of acceptance. And for the first time on the heights of Ruatha Hold, the dragons of Pern lifted their heads and bugled in rejoicing!

So, yes, we did just spend several pages on the origin story of Ruatha Hold. It seems like this would have been a chapter in another book, but that there's no real story to connect it to. And there's not really a major conflict in it, either - Red fords the river, without incident, and then builds his Hold.

That this story also contains several major parts of the mythology is a bit interesting - before reprints and collections, finding short stories would mean having the luck or the skill of getting the right magazine at the right time. People looking for the complete story of Pern could end up massively disappointed. It doesn't seem wise to put those things into the short story sequence.

_[The original comments point out that this particular short story wasn't sold or published independently of the collection it's housed in, so instead of it being "here's a short story that we've collected for a wider audience", it's a story that was included in a selection of short stories packaged up for book form. Looking at my previous criticism, which is to say that it's a story that lacks conflict and has several key worldbuilding points embedded inside, it looks much more like a story that was written, possibly because people were curious about Ruatha, or because it was a story that needed to get out, but after being written, it was appraised and found to be one that probably wouldn't sell by itself. So, instead, it goes into the drawer and gets stuck in the next short story collection along with other material that did sell. It's bonus content, just with a pretty significant amount of worldbuilding heft built into it._

_Another thing that I realize, belatedly, is that in all of these stories, Red and Mairi don't really treat Sorka and Sean as their daughter and the boy she married, i.e. family, instead treating them as dragonriders, a caste entirely separate from them and worthy of religious language. Sean and Sorka, mostly Sean really, are trying to engender this attitude in the population, but much of the time, family tends to trade on "I saw you when you were in diapers, child, so you don't get to be formal with me", so it's weird that Red and Mairi are not in more contact with Sean, or insisting that Sorka come to dinner occasionally, or the other sorts of things that are involved in maintaining family ties. There's no evidence past the original distaste for Sean that indicates the Hanrahans are estranged or don't want to be involved with Sorka and Sean's life, so, yeah.]_

Join us again week for The Second Weyr.


	5. The Second Weyr: Mythology-Building

Last time, we were treated to a shaggy dog story, of sorts, about the founding of Ruatha Hold by Red Hanrahan, whose daughter, Sorka, is the first Weyrwoman of Pern, and now has to make a decision about where to put another base of operations to cover the ever-increasing amount of land and caves being taken over by the settlers.

**The Second Weyr: Content Notes: Sexism**

The short stories are getting longer as we go along - this is the longest one yet. The plot opens with Sorka giving Torene, another queen rider, a little grief about scouting out the possible location for a second Weyr to house the increasing dragon population and to provide more land for Fort residents to GTFO. The need is pretty urgent:

> Establishing another Weyr was no longer an idle notion but an urgent need. Fort's accommodations were terribly overcrowded, even when they sent wings to live temporarily in the less-than-comfortable cavern systems at Telgar; and due to the stress and the greater risk of accidents, they had begun sending mating and clutching queens to the nearly tropical Big Island. Sorka gave a little shudder, remembering last year's disaster and how close they had come to losing three queens in an aerial battle that left all three wounded. The bronzes and browns who had finally separated them had not come away unscathed either.  
>  The entire Weyr had learned a terrible lesson: one queen in heat could precipitate the condition in those also near their season. No queen would share bronze and brown followers with each other. Tarrie Chernoff still woke up with nightmares in which Porth was going **between** and she couldn't follow. Evenath, the first queen that Faranth had produced, had lost an eye as well as the use of one wing, and Catherine's Siglath had so much wing fabric destroyed that neither could fly in the queens' wing again. There were still queens enough to do the low flying with flamethrowers, joined as they usually were by any green rider in the first or third trimesters of pregnancy, when constant dropping into the cold of **between** might cause miscarriage.

So the secret knowledge of miscarriage is a thing already known (and that has been passed down secretly among those who might not want to be pregnant all the time - I wonder about those green riders and how much they take advantage of it) and there's already knowledge of queens fighting if they get in each other's space during mating.

So tell me again why, other than the narrative's need to punish Kylara for a perceived fault, Wirenth and Prideth needed to fight each other? Prideth was at Nabol, Wirenth at High Reaches, so there shouldn't have been that much proximity to set each other off. It seems like this is one of those pieces of knowledge that should be so firmly ingrained to know where everyone is going to be on any given day, especially near a mating cycle, that something like that shouldn't have happened. Or that the queens of the Weyrs are specifically chosen in such a way that their mating cycles do not interact with each other (assuming that's possible). Pern continues to be a place where even the most basic of safety procedures seem to be ignored at least as often as they are followed, and the fights, such as they are, between Sean and Sorka are about balancing reducing the accident and death rate of dragonriders and trainees through discipline and training and remembering that people still have to live a life as dragonriders, instead of being solely focused on the job.

There's also some more building of custom and tradition displayed. After the narrative tells us Sean picked the brain of everyone that he could about tactics and strategy for fighting in the air, we see how he structures the fighting squadrons.

> As the numbers of available fighting dragons increased, he had decided on the appropriate and handiest number for smaller units: wings of thirty-three dragons, each with a Wingleader and two Wingseconds so that, even if the Wingleader and his dragon had to drop out because of injuries, there would be a secondary rider prepared to take charge. This was especially necessary, he felt, when the numbers of the smaller dragons, the blues and greens, increased. The Wingleader should know each dragon in his wing well enough to see signs of strain and send the pair back to the Weyr to rest. Some blue and green riders, determined to prove that their partners were every bit as good as the larger dragons, took risks and rode their lighter, less sturdy beasts beyond their endurance.  
>  "Even a dragon has limits," Sean repeated and repeated during weyrling training. "Respect them! And yours! We don't need heroes in every Fall. We need **dragonriders** every Fall."  
>  The fortunately rare deaths, either rider or dragon, or both, had a sobering effect on even the most audacious. Injuries, so often due to carelessness, always dropped off after a death or a bad accident. Those that happened during weyrling training were the ones that Sorka hated the most - because they would haunt Sean through his dreams and turn him into an implacable martinet during his waking hours. Sorka would, however, take him to task when he became too autocratic. She made herself always approachable by any rider and never assumed a judgmental attitude.  
>  "You upset morale throughout the Weyr," she'd tell him firmly.  
>  "I'm trying to improve **discipline** throughout the Weyr," he'd shout back at her. "So we won't **have** more deaths. I can't stand the deaths! Especially the dragons! They are so special, and we need every one of them."

So now we know who set everything up, and the beginning of the dynamic where the Weyrwoman is responsible for the happiness in the Weyr and the Weyrleader is responsible for the leadership and battle preparations. We also find out that Sorka has the ability to hear all dragons, which is why she knows what Torene has been up to.

I'm beginning to wonder why all the exposition and worldbuilding is being put in these short stories, when it seems like there's a way of binding them together in a more novel-length narrative. The only one that hasn't really fit was Survey P.E.R.N., and that could probably stay a short story. If it wasn't for collections like this one, most of the major information about Pern would be a matter of having been able to purchase the right magazines at the right time, while they were in print. Or at least, they would have been, had this book not been designed to be a book to start with. Still, the idea of putting all your major worldbuilding into short stories seems like a really bad way of going about your mythology creation. The fans would probably put up scans of the few remaining copies and circulate them as much as possible, once the material goes out of print.

Then again, that assumes these books and stories were part of the plan from the beginning, when the likely reality is that Ninth and Sixth Pass Pern came first, and these later books are welding something else on to a structure previously established. Which means there's a lot of extra backstory to suddenly have to deal with. Perhaps Pern was an unexpected success and the clamoring for more work put the author in a situation where they needed to resurrect Holmes from Reichenbach.

In any case, the explosion of exposition in the short stories is really weird.

Getting back to plot, Torene tells Sorka that they want a new Weyr because Sean is just too perfect as a Weyrleader and nobody else will get to be in charge if that continues.

Sorka is also apparently jealous of Torene's beauty.

> It was slightly unfair, Sorka thought, for a girl to have such long eyelashes as well as a beautiful face, an elegant - Sean said "sexy" - figure, and personality and brains, as well. Even her short hair, close-cropped to be more comfortable under the skull-fitting helmets they wore, formed exquisite curls that framed her high-cheeked and distinctive countenance.

Jealousy and beauty generally combine to create villainy on Pern. The question is whether Torene will turn out to be the evil one or Sorka will. Considering the investment in Sorka to this point, it's probably Torene, although we are reassured almost immediately after Sorka describes Torene that she's without guile or malice and that she discounts her own beauty. So she's supposed to be in the Brekke mold instead of the Kylara one?

Torene waxes poetic to Sorka about their chosen spot and the need to claim it and get the cutters to work on it, before someone else does and the cutters give out for good, while Sorka feels jealousy both about Faranth's daughter being bigger than her and in inquiring of Torene who she thinks will be Weyrleader with her at the proposed second Weyr, trying to figure out who it might be herself. Problem is, Torene shows no favor to anybody. Although Sean and Sorka's son, Michael, seems to be giving her the cold shoulder. In any case, we also get the information that the tradition of "whomever flies the queen becomes Weyrleader" is yet another one of Sean's opinions gone unchallenged, the contraction of names comes from having to shout and speak very quickly during the Fall, and the opinion of holders by dragonriders is already strongly dismissive. (Seriously, the traditions are coming on thickly, and apparently in the forms that will stay unchanged for two thousand years.)

Sean crashes the gathering, Torene tells him what she's planned, and Sean reassures her that the new space will be theirs. Sean and Sorka retire to bed and talk about what's going on and how fast they will have to go, now that things have been set in motion. Because there will be new Weyrs, plural, rather than a new Weyr. And there was a lot of fighting with the management to get the needed material and tools for all of this, because Joel Lillienkamp replaced Benden on the council after Benden died. (Clearly, time has moved forward again. Also, Zi Ongola's hold is named Tillek, and Telgar has put a Hold on top of his mining veins, with the same name.)

There's a short discussion of who would be the best young riders to be in charge of the new Weyrs, apart from their son, who is dragon-obsessed and clearly trying very hard to be the best rider ever. They want to avoid nepotism, but it's pretty clear that Mihall is going to be in charge somewhere. Sorka has a few thoughts about her son and that role.

> There wasn't a girl in the Weyr who wouldn't be proud to have her queen flown by Brianth and to be able to **stay** in Mihall's company as his Weyrwoman. Ah, but would her handsome redheaded son, who had shown himself as willing to bed a holder as a rider, be willing to settle to **one**? The Weyrleadership had to be stable, or the Weyr would be disrupted. What behavior Sean would condone in his son in his current capacity would alter once Mihall became a Weyrleader. It was time for the boy to settle anyway, she thought firmly, and on the end of that, decided she would **not** interfere with a word to the wise to him. Mihall was man enough now to recognize a need for fidelity.

_[Observe: A cocowhat.]_

And you see, this is where I get confused, because those things do not follow from each other. We've already seen that dragon appetites drag their riders along through the mating process, regardless of what the riders are thinking at the time. If the strength of the Weyr hinges on sexual fidelity between two riders, then they're going to have to account for the mating flights of every other dragon in the Weyr, so that they can be together every time. That's impossible. There has to be a certain level of tolerance for sex outside of declared pairings or groupings, or the Weyrs would be unable to function. And that would have to include women or men in Holds, as well, despite the already calcified attitude that holders are inferior to dragonriders.

Strong leadership is entirely possible without the need for a monogamous kind of relationship between the military leader and the captain of morale. That it works for Sean and Sorka doesn't make it a universal constant. In fact, it should probably be seen as really weird, given how dragons and riders operate. If Mihall is going to play the field, then that shouldn't reflect on his ability to lead. (And again, dragons having sex is no basis for a system of governance.) Sorka might want her son to settle down, but ascribing the success of the Weyr to it is thinking like a Terran author, not a Pernese dragonrider.

_[The Todd books **do not help** this situation in any way, even though they have explicit polyamory on page, because they still work under an unexamined assumption that everyone on Pern wants monogamy and the ideal situation is monogamy, at least for gold and bronze riders in leadership positions, as well as for all of the culture outside of the Weyrs. Which, given what we know about the wide band and strong compulsions that come from dragon mating, is nearly impossible to have happen in practice. When we get to them, as well, we find that the watch-whers have a similar broadcast when they go mating, which has its own problems, but at least acknowledges what is about to happen, arranges things accordingly, and has an explicit understanding that what happens during mating flights is exactly that, with no commitments formed or broken because of mating flight sex. Given that the leader of the whers has her sanity called into question explicitly several times, I wonder if there's also an implication there that her system for dealing with sex rays is thought similarly insane.]_

No conclusions are reached on the question of who will lead, although Sorka approves of the use of younger riders to go out and establish the new Weyrs. While she and Sean sleep, the native shifts to Torene, who is being discreet about her conversation, and F'mar, one of her more persistent suitors. F'mar is in charge of the mechanical devices for the Weyrs (a pedigree collected from his father, Fulmar Stone Sr.), and the suitor that Torene likes the best, but at this point, Torene wants her first time to be a special occasion, so she doesn't let on about her preference. The two of them head to the kitchen to help prepare and then eat dinner, and Torene is smart enough to observe how the current system works very well in her favor.

> Slowly but surely, the task of provisioning the Weyr was being handled by the Holds, so one way or another, the dragonriders often ate far better than holders. That, and the glamor of being a dragonrider, were reasons why so many young people were ready to take their chances on the Hatching Ground even though their parents might have had other careers in mind for their children. In the early days, Sean and Sorka had been forced to act rather autocratically in demanding enough boys and girls to stand on the Hatching Ground, especially older boys, who would be mature enough to fly in Fall as soon as their dragons were old enough. Gradually, however, to have a son or daughter become a dragonrider became a mark of prestige for the family.

This is Hunger Games logic, at least for the districts that are relatively affluent. Sending someone up to the dragonriders potentially means they get better food and the prestige of having a dragonrider in the family. The only downside is that you lose the child to the riders, but if you have an heir and a spare, or you've been "cursed" with daughters that will require dowries and you're not sure they can be taken up as official mistresses or get married to other Holders, send them to the dragonriders! If they get chosen, you get to host them and brag that you have riders in the family. In later Passes, Search seems more like the lottery system that the Hunger Games will use, even though these works predate the entire dystopia movement by decades. There has to be a downside, or there wouldn't be Holders trying to shield their children from the riders? Is the thought of injury and death fighting Thread enough of a downside to make the bargain less obvious? As we keep asking, _what happens to candidates that don't Impress?_

_[Bless the Todd books for trying to figure some of these things out, really, but the solutions they choose often make things worse, not better. As at least some amount of the Todd books suggest that the boys that don't Impress go out and become successful in the Holds (despite not having any skills that would be useful to Holders other than being intimidating and possibly good with a knife) and the girls that don't Impress just become part of the undifferentiated staff that keep the Weyr running. Which, given the world that Pern is, is probably seen as one of the best outcomes they can have if they don't reach the vaunted heights of dragonrider-dom, because at least in a Weyr nobody is insisting they get married to someone they hate and have children until they die.]_

Torene joins her friends, who are pretty certain about what she already knows about new Weyrs, although she doesn't confirm it and instead heads off to make music and then sleep. We also have mention of our first gay blue rider, who doesn't warrant a name, just "Dagmath's rider", and that Sean is considering sending three other gay men with him to a new Weyr. So as to cut down on the pregnancies of green riders, we're told. Well, at least it wasn't "ew, icky gay people", but the stated justification sucks. Would be better to just say "Hey, we don't want anyone to be unhappy or unable to find someone to cavort with."

The next morning has Thread scheduled to fall in their area, so there's preparations for fighting up first, as well as Torene remembering how her "can hear all dragons" ability was exposed - she launched before Sorka did, because she heard Carenath say to follow and did it without understanding. During the actual fight, along with the flamethrower work, we see another important function of the queens' wing - guiding injured dragons to a safe landing using their own mass and wings as support, then ferrying them to medics at the Weyr or Hold that have the facilities and knowledge. The evening meal has the riders pretty sure that Sean will be giving them a talking-to because of how many injuries they suffered. In their defense, the Thread was clumping, and clumping Thread is the most difficult to fight, apparently.

And there's also this:

> Only queens never got official vacation: queens got time off only for clutching. As Alaranth had yet to experience her first mating flight, Torene had been on duty for over two years without a break.

[And there's your second Cocowhat of the post.] 

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. DANGER! DANGER!

Sean has supposedly been talking to great tactical minds and learning and experimenting and yet he somehow manages to not include the queen riders on scheduled shore leave and vacation time? I call bullshit. Terran generals understand the need to rotate troops in and out and mix up deployment with leave and family time. Presumably the admirals and commanders of the Federated Sentient Planets do the same, so there's no reason to believe Sean would miss that. After two years of nonstop fighting with no vacation, Sean should be staring down a queens' revolt from Torene and every other rider who thinks that having to get a dragon pregnant for leave time is poor management practice. Just because Sorka and Faranth may be hyperfertile didn't mean every woman is.

This also feels out of place - up to this point, it seemed like the colonists were at home with the idea of women and men doing important jobs together without significant issue, with the exception of Kitti Ping's gender essentialism in the creation of who the dragons would pair-bond with. I realize that we have to eventually get to the Sixth and Ninth passes where the sexism has become institutionalized, but the author could choose to spin it that those times are the corrupted and fallen versions of what was a more egalitarian setting.

Also, Sean is repeatedly praised as being clever and smart. This could be his privilege spot making him miss the obvious, but at a certain point, the situation should boil over so obviously that he has to confront it and realize how stupid that policy is.

In any case, the announcement from Sean is a little about bad flying and a lot about the four new Weyrs that will be coming on-line as soon as they can be built. Which is a good place to stop for the moment, and pick back up with the second half next week.


	6. The Second Weyr: All Ahead Full

Last time, rumors abounded about the placement of another Weyr, a necessity for the burgeoning dragon population. We also learned a lot about how Weyr customs were established (they happen mostly by Sean or by accident), and that Sean should, by rights, have a queen mutiny on his hands based on his administrative practices with them.

And that Sorka's a bit jealous of another queen rider, and ready for her son to settle down into a relationship by becoming a Weyrleader. 

It's a whole barrel of fun.

**The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall: The Second Weyr: Content Notes: Dragon sex, dubious consent**

We last left the plot with the announcement of four new Weyr sites to be founded. Sean, rather than assigning riders to the new locations, has decided to let the Wingleaders and queen riders draw lots to see which of the five Weyrs they will be assigned to, exempting himself and Sorka from the draw, naturally. Torene is the last to draw before the absentees, and she pulls the Weyr she wants to go to, the one that she's been scouting for a good long while. In addition, Sean says that the first queen to rise to mate at each of the new Weyrs will be the senior queen, with her rider as Weyrwoman in charge, and whatever dragon flies them creates the Weyrleader for that location.

This changes Torene's delight to suspicion. She knows her queen is going to be the next to mate, and this makes her wonder whether the whole thing has been arranged for her benefit. Faranth is no real help, just saying that Sorka and the dragons think she'll be a good Weyrwoman. The other queens selected also seem to think that Torene's been picked specifically to lead a Weyr when everyone gathers to get to know each other. Dagmath's rider finally gets a name - Martin, David Caterel reveals the Hold tithe plan that everyone is agreed to, and they talk about grubs for a bit:

> Everyone knew that it would take several hundred years for grubs - the anti-Thread organism that Ted Tubberman had bioengineered - to spread across the Southern Continent in sufficient density to make ordinary vegetation less vulnerable to destruction by those deadly spores. And only once the new life-form was well-enough established in the south could colonies of it be transferred north.

Nobody mentally or physically spits at the mention of Tubberman's name, which suggests that he's been dead long enough for hagiography to replace history.

The meeting also gives us the name of Torene's Weyr - Benden, suggested by one of the other queen riders, and then agreed on by everyone in memory of the admiral they all loved. The rest of the meeting is the group poring over probe documents and designing the Weyr they will be living in, to the point where they eventually push Torene out. She has a short and very awkward encounter with Mihall about the new Weyr, Alaranth's upcoming flight, and the fact that Torene really has no reference of what to think about Mihall, along with revealing again that she can hear all the dragons.

The next morning, Torene goes to Telgar Hold to see her mother and father about more copies of the probe data for her new Weyr. They anticipate her arrival, since the news has already spread, and by the time breakfast is finished, she has four copies of everything. Right afterward, she heads on to what will be Benden, meeting Mihall there, who had been informed of their errand. The narrative tells us that Torene is falling for Mihall in the way that one might in a sitcom - by basically having all the confused feels about him and not recognizing it for what it is. While Mihall plays his own emotional state extremely cool and businesslike - if he were a woman, he'd probably be cast in the tsundere role.

The arrival of the other riders cuts the together time short, and the group does a full tour of the space on foot to see how it all works. Once the cutters and diggers arrive, the dragons pitch in with the excavation, over the objections of some of the riders. After a full day of work, everyone settles down to agonize about sore muscles, and eventually gather the numbweed to help the aches and pains go away. Mihall ends up massaging Torene's shoulders and a few others that night. After that, construction works in two shifts, along with the riders starting to fly against their own Weyr's Threadfall sequences. Once the Weyr is mostly well constructed, they go help the nearby Hold get constructed and time passes, while Torene gets to know everyone a little better.

Until it's time for Alaranth to go on the mating flight. Mihall notices the coloration change and calls out for the other queens to clear out, which they do. Then comes Torene's experience.

> Mihall swiveled Torene about again so that she could see the male dragons beginning to gather on the Rim, their eyes taking on the avid orange is arousal. Their riders were converging on Mihall and Torene, and suddenly she was the focus of their awakened sensuality. Despite herself, she recoiled, tearing her hand free of Mihall's grip. His eyes had turned an intense blue. "Remember," Mihall said then, "don't let her-"  
>  "I know, I know, **I know**!" she cried, resenting each and every one is them for the way they were looking at her. No one had told her about **this** part of a queen's mating - especially this flight, when the reward of Weyrleadership went to the winner. She backed up until she was leaning against the stone of the Weyr, her mouth gone dry, even as sweat began to ooze from her pores and a strange sensation enveloped her guts.

Ah, yes, this is a rather candid reminder of what the experience is like from the perspective of someone who's never done it before. The last time we saw this was all the way back in Dragonflight, so it's been a while. Alien Sex Pollen is an established trope, but I think this page is finally getting toward how the experience must be _fucking terrifying_ for a queen rider, to be surrounded by all those very horny dragonriders, with everyone feeling the intense emotions of their dragons. It would be very easy for this to be the setup for a traumatic scene - and without the narrative's reassurance that everything turns out fine, it would be. 

Back to Torene.

> Not even the calm explicit recital Sorka had given her covered the depth or intensity of the emotions the dragon was feeling, much less Torene's reluctant but inexorable response to the lust. A blood lust, first, with Alaranth aware of an insatiable hunger.

So there is still at least some information being passed from one queen rider to another, although I wonder what they mean by "explicit", since it seems like there's still a lot to experience.

Anyway, Torene keeps control of Alaranth to blood her kills and then the two of them take off for the flight, with the male dragons just an afterthought in the gestalt consciousness. Until, much like Lessa's experience, Alaranth is grabbed by a flying bronze and the mating experience begins for the dragons.

> "Now! Torene, now!"  
>  Torene was no longer aloft with Alaranth in the throes of the dragons' mating passions; she was naked in the arms of the bronze's rider - naked, and her body demanding the same glorious orgasm that her dragon had just experienced.  
>  "Damn it, Torene," the rider was saying as he attempted to penetrate her body, "did you have to wait until **now**?  
>  She gripped him to her, her nails digging into the muscular flesh of his back. The hurt was a mere moment's discomfort, immediately forgotten in the powerful surging of lust that rose from some unexpected, limitless depth within her.  
>  " **Toreeeeeeene!** "

As I was saying about narrative reassurance, this is the first time Torene has had sex, which would normally involve a lot more awkward and painful and start and stop situations and, hopefully, communication between partners, but instead, of course, the residual effects from the dragon sex allow everyone to just power through without having to worry about this.

It also suggests to me that it might be possible to have a dragon mating flight that doesn't actually involve human sex, although it might mean having an ample supply of sex toys on hand to help, and a couple of padded rooms to put all the riders in. So, y'know, that the Weyr leadership could be achieved without the monogamous partnership coupling that seems to be the assumption.

If there was any doubt about who the bronze's rider is, it's Mihall, but he gets described in a way that suggests Torene is pretty pissed off about it, as she describes the virtues he supposedly has.

> "Deft?" Well, he had certainly been that, both with his bronze's tactics and with herself. "Controlled?" Oh, no, not a bit controlled. Not polite, and more angry with her virginity than considerate. But then, had she been all that wise, leaving her first experience until her queen's first flight? Well, it had been her option, and she was glad she had. That way she had been sure that it was her dragon who would choose, not some silly preference of hers.

In the aftermath, Mihall confesses to Torene that he's been in love with her for a very long time, and that this was the only way that he could have her, since Sean basically told his son to stay very far away from queen riders. And that's the end of the story, with both sets of riders and dragons apparently satisfied with what has happened. Yes, Mihall and Torene stay together as Weyrleaders for a good long while.

_[There wasn't a cocowhat here in the original, but there really should have been, so imagine it here, if you please._

_Furthermore, perspective allows me to think about how this experience was narrated and experienced differently from Brekke's first time. Mostly because it's from Torene's perspective, rather than Mihall's. Brekke said she was "inhibited", where Torene might be plausibly described as straight-up asexual or aromantic, at least until her dragon's heat overrode her own preferences. The narrative says that she waited for her first time so that her dragon would decide what was going on, rather than her own preferences coming into play, so it's not an ironclad reading that Torene might not be all that interested in sex, but I think it's doable._

_We can also compare Torene's experience and decision to wait until she had to have sex because dragon with the way that Fiona, in the Todd books, decides that instead of waiting, she's going to get sex out of the way beforehand and does so with the singular person who is old enough and experienced enough to be a useful instructor with her. It still ends up being a shock for her when it comes to the mating flight, but that's for a different reason than "I don't have any experience and these lusting urges are uncontrollable!" Both Torene and Fiona's experiences and decisions are valid, but I really do wonder how many dragonriders there are or have been who have had less or no interest in sex and only put up with it because of their dragons. As much as I wonder where all of the polyamorous dragonrider relationships are, and all the lesbian dragonriders, and all the other things that the Todd books will at least try to make work on Pern, even if the execution is…not good.]_

I'd love to see a story at some point where it doesn't turn out to be a perfect match for the Weyrleadership, and things still go fine. Just once, please.

_[The commentary squad suggested Moreta succeeds at filling this role, except that Moreta, of course, dies tragically at the end of her narrative from an entirely preventable disaster. Which would provide, at best, an asterisk next to her name, because even if it wasn't intended as a commentary on Moreta having had multiple partners throughout her life, it could certainly be read as such, and in the context of a narrative that has very specific ideas about monogamy and appropriate partnerships, there's enough evidence that the idea of Moreta's death as redemption for her wanton ways can't be dismissed out of hand.]_


	7. Rescue Run: The Cockroaches Always Survive

Last time, we got to see Torene experience her first mating flight and her first sexual experience at the same time. Naturally, it was with Sean and Sorka's son, perpetuating the dynasty of Weyrleaders in the family. We also got a boatload of mythology dumped in us in the story of the founding of Benden Weyr. And now, it's time for yet another short story, this one yet longer than the last.

**The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall: Rescue Run: Content Notes: Male Gaze**

So, having spent lots of time planetside, we get to cut back out to the world of the Federated Sentient Planets, with another person named Benden surprised about the orange flag on the Rukbat system. Ross Vaclav Benden reports to his superior officer about the flag, which contains the distress beacon that Tubberman sent up from Landing.

What are they doing out there in the first place? Apparently, despite the cessation of hostilities with the Nathi Empire, they're still trying to annex the FSP. This cruiser, the Amherst, is out sweeping the boundaries of the Empire for Nathi incursions. So they're in the right place to collect the message, and then decide what to do about it.

There's some exposition about the colony and how this Benden had to endure having the famous uncle all throughout his days at the academy while the ship puzzles out that the distress beacon was cobbled together, aimed at the wrong place, and likely tossed off without the authorization of the colony authorities. The Oort cloud is of interest to one of the scientists aboard, Ni Morgana, and there's a question about whether Oort clouds can generate dangerous life forms.

Having satisfied their knowledge, the captain authorizes a rescue run, to be headed by Benden, taking a shuttle and a few personnel down to Pern to establish contact and see what the current status is. After that, the ship collects a large sample of Oort Cloud material, which turns up the expected ice chunks, other rocky material, no sign of any weapon, and some material that Ni has not seen before. It's definitely life, but isn't responding to probing to see if it's alive at the freezing space temperatures things are kept at. After an admonition to be careful, Ni is allowed to bring a sample up to a warmer temperature. A quick narrative cut has Benden and the captain summoned to the observation area to see the giant pulsating mass that activated and engorged Thread becomes, before it self-destructs from lack of food. Ni volunteers for the rescue run so as to be able to study Thread more. Another cut, and Benden is making checks before the mission is ready to launch and complaining to Ni about her choice of junior officer to accompany.

> "Just what were you like as an ensign, Lieutenant?" Ni Morgana asked, giving him a sly sideways glance.  
>  "I was never that gauche," he replied tartly. True enough, since he'd been reared in a Service family and had absorbed proper behavior along with all the normal nutrients. Then he relented, grinning wryly back at her add he remembered a few incidents..."This sounds like a fairly routine mission: find and evaluate."  
>  "Let's hope so," Saraidh ni Morgana replied earnestly.  
>  Ross Benden was delighted to be teamed up with the elegant science officer. She was his senior in years but not in Fleet, for she had done her scientific training before applying to the Service. She was also the only woman on board who kept her hair long, though it was generally dressed in intricate arrangements of braids. The effect as somehow regal and very feminine - an effect at variance with her expertise in the various forms of contact sport that were enjoyed in the **Amherst** 's gym complex. If she had made any liaisons on board, they were not general knowledge; he'd overheard speculation about her tastes, but no boasting or claims of personal experience. He had always found her agreeable company and a competent officer, though they hadn't shared more than a watch or two until now.

Waaaaaaaaitaminute. It can't be a coincidence that the line before a paragraph describing how attractive Benden thinks Morgana is that we are treated to her full name, instead of the name that she and the narrative have been using up to this point. I think it's supposed to help us establish her possible ethnic origin to help build a picture of the body that accompanies the braids that Benden finds fascinating and feminine, sufficiently so that it cancels or contrasts what most be a fairly athletic build based on her proficiency in contact sports. It wouldn't be something, say, practical as a means of controlling and tucking away hair that might be very unruly if left fully loose, without having to use technology to clip or hold it in place. It has to be ornamental and prettifying, so that she can be elegant and regal, a woman that can be put on a pedestal even though she behaves in a much more rough and tumble way. And all of this has to be true-ish, even though Benden hasn't spent any real duty time with her, either, making Ni Morgana an excellent example of a lady in a chivalric romance.

After this interlude into the pantsfeels of Benden, Lieutenant Zane provides a very concise explanation as to why Pern should never have been approved for colonization.

> "There'll be no one left alive down there. Ni Morgana had proved the Oort cloud generated that life-form, so it wasn't Nastie manufacture. There's no reason for taking a chance and landing on that planet if any of those **things** are alive down there! And they could be, with an entire planet to eat up."

Precisely. If the survey team had done a proper sweep of the system for probable issues, they would have discovered Thread, and would have likely closed off the system entirely to colonization. Yes, we were told in the story that they were short personnel, but they didn't study all the possible things in the system to make sure that the planet would be suitable and not have a collision or get too close to anything. The colony ships could be forgiven for not noticing, but the survey team needed to do more than they did before declaring the planet safe.

The plot then gives us the final meeting before and then the shuttle launch and approach, with a shrug by Ni during the descent described as "a shrug of her slender, elegant shoulders", pretty clearly telegraphing what kind of pantsfeels Benden has for her, if the previous description wasn't clear enough. The sweep over the site of Landing reveals no life forms or signs of people, excepting a small grouping at the Big Island. The exploded volcano and ash-covered site causes some exclamations about the likely fate of the colony. The dolphins, however, are rather happy to see something, but nobody on the ship speaks dolphin, so they can't ask them what happened.

Since there's no reason to deviate from the plan so far, the shuttle finds the landing grid that's still under the ash and unloads personnel to take a look around. They find lots of dead Thread and evidence of the abandonment of Landing, as well as the evidence that Thread lands on the planet, even though Ni is not able to connect how Thread gets to the planet. Following along to the other beacon that pinged their sensors, the shuttle touches down and meets the civilization on the Big Island, currently commanded by: Stev Kimmer, currently in his 80s or 90s of age. After Morgana introduces herself, she mentions no signs of life at Landing, and Kimmer tells her everyone but his settlement must be dead, then, and he's very glad to see them, since the genetic diversity of the place is starting to get a little thin. Benden looks at the people who are here, based on their features and resemblances and wonders if Stev has been committing incest with his descendants. The inside of the cavern is spacious, well laid-out, and contains murals and star charts on the wall and ceilings, which clues Morgana in on how Thread gets to Pern.

Age doesn't appear to have softened any of Kimmer's edges, and Benden has already noticed that there appear to be two factions in the cavern.

> But Benden took note of the tension evident in the oldest three men. They stood just that much apart from the women and youngsters to suggest they had distanced themselves deliberately.  
>  [...the children are described as having an Asian ancestry as Stev walks people through the cavern on a tour...]  
>  "Did you have stonecutters?" Nev asked abruptly, running his hand over the glassy, smooth walls.  
>  One of the older black-haired men stepped forward. "My parents, Kenjo and Ito Fusaiyuki, designed and carved all the principal rooms. I am Shensu. These are my brothers, Jiro and Kino; our sister, Chio." He gestured to the woman who was reverently withdrawing a bottle from a shelf in a long dresser.  
>  With a searing glance at Shensu, Kimmer hastily took the initiative again. "These are my daughters, Faith and Hope, Charity is setting out the glasses." Then, with a flick of his fingers, he indicated Shensu. "You may introduce my grandchildren."  
>  "Pompous old goat," Ni Morgana muttered to Benden, but she smiled as the grandchildren were introduced as Meishun, Alun, and Pat, the two boys being in their mid-teens.  
>  "This stake could have supported many more families of only those who said they'd join us had kept their promises," Kimmer went on bitterly. Then, in an imperious gesture, he waved the guests to the table and offered each a glass of rich, fruity red wine.

Yeah, that setup sounds a lot like after Kenjo was murdered by Bitra and Nabol and Lemos died in the shuttle accident, and then Tubberman got killed by his own creations, Kimmer was the only one left and seized control of the Big Island. I doubt Kenjo's kids have forgiven him for what happened to their father, and Stev Kimmer taking over what is rightly theirs. By all rights, Kimmer should have been knifed, poisoned, or generally left outside during Threadfall. There doesn't appear to be any reason for his existence to continue, unless there's some sort of leverage or knowledge he has that's indispensable to the running of the stake.

Incidentally, after serving the guests the best wine, both Benden and Morgana note that everyone else is drinking a watered-down version of it, which suggests that parsimony is also the way of the settlement - yet another reason for Kimmer to have been deposed.

Polite inquiry about what the situation was gives us Kimmer's version of what happened, from a "forty year-old memory" that makes him angry at having been stranded after Bitra stole and lost the interstellar ship, and he insists very vehemently that there are no other survivors and that everyone here would have died without his assistance (Ito apparently asked Kimmer to take over after a difficult time giving birth to Chio), a premise that is clearly disputed every way except verbally by everyone around him. Once again, they've had forty years to leave Kimmer to Thread. Why haven't they?

As Kimmer continues to detail his attempts to find survivors and any reason to believe anyone has survived, he also details his belief that Benden, Boll, and those that followed them were insane and are probably dead because nobody can beat Thread. Kimmer's indispensable skill, it turns out, is in producing animals, grass, and other necessary food things for survival. The children "accidentally" let slip that they have vast quantities of gemstones and ores that would be useful back in civilization, which prompts Kimmer to exclaim that they will just be killed and their wealth taken, and then to have his facade crumble and beg to be rescued. While Benden tries to figure out how to get the survivors on board, if needed, Morgana asks for and gets all the useful reports on Thread and its origins from the Fusaiyuki sons, as well as a guide to go examine more of the dead Thread shells the next day.

_[We are again struck by the part where, supposedly, the gems and ores of Pern are supposed to be of use elsewhere, despite having explicitly been disclaimed at just about every chance someone from the FSP says anything about them. Also, I think I have figured out a possible reason why Stev hasn't been knifed, which I didn't notice at the time. Shensu introduces the children of Fusaiyuki, Kimmer introduces his daughters. Depending on where the loyalties lie with the children and the grandchildren, it may not be possible for the Fusaiyukis to get Stev away long enough to kill him properly and quietly. And doing so might set the daughters against them, which then further reduces the available genes. It's going to end poorly for everyone eventually, but there may be a delicate truce maintained by Stev Kimmer's continued existence that can't be upset until there are options for escape. Now that there's a shuttle, with the plans that are in place, Shensu is probably working hard now to try and make sure his family gets on the shuttle and Stev (and possibly his family) are left behind. Which might be a far better revenge than killing him outright, if you can get it to work.]_

We then get to peer in on Benden dressing down the ensign that suggested being able to rescue all the people in the cavern, before watching the herds come back, just beating out a brown winged creature. Which I have to assume is not a dragon, as a dragon doing this would presumably have alerted the rider to the presence of the stake. Before that path is followed too much, though, Ni and Shensu are hip deep in the specifics of their negotiations for Shensu's help in studying Thread, while Shensu praises Admiral Benden and Kenjo for the work they did in fighting off Thread and throwing shade on Kimmer for what happened afterward, mixed with some bitterness about how long the rescue has been in coming. When Shensu asks to be taken away as his payment, Benden accepts, even though he explains the difficulty in doing so. Shensu then sweetens the pot by showing Benden and Morgana the secret fuel stash Kenjo had, while warning them against conversing, because the acoustics of the Hold makes eavesdropping very easy. The amount of fuel is clearly enough to fill the shuttle, so that people and their wealth can get away safely, and Shensu explains both how Kenjo's flying made the stash, how he probably gave some away to Benden so that they could escape Landing, and how he's now giving it away to a Benden to rescue them. There's a short talk about what gems to bring with them for maximum value, and then Shensu shows what sort of lapidary skills he and his siblings have.

Shensu then explains that he's sure there are no other survivors because there were ships ready to sail once, where Bitra and Kimmer were ready to just take off, but in three years, those ships never actually sailed. Which is not actually a good reason to believe nobody survived, considering the panic that happened at being to evacuate before Garben exploded, and if nobody knows which direction everyone actually sailed off in, then they don't actually know what happened.

In any case, the officers and marines and Kenjo's kids all haul fuel to the shuttle under the cover of night, and there's still some left over when things are full up. This seems like a good place to stop, since we're over the halfway point of this story. Next week, maybe we finally find out the ultimate fate of Stev Kimmer.


	8. Rescue Run: One Last Impossible Plot

Last time, a Federation ship received the Tubberman distress signal and dispatched a shuttle with a Benden in it to see if there are any survivors on Pern. They found Stev Kimmer, his brood, and the Fusaiyuki clan all living together, and Kimmer somehow in charge. Kimmer is desperate to get off the planet, but it's the Fusaiyukis that are providing more information and resources to get themselves off the ground safely.

**The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall: Rescue Run: Content Notes: Sexual Assault Involving A Minor**

The narrative resumes the next morning, after the clandestine fuel run, and Benden is sore all over from the haul. ni Morgana arrives soon afterward with numbweed salve and works it into Benden's sore muscles. If that's supposed to be a sign of budding romance between the two, I'm going to be be annoyed, because all we've seen so far is that Benden is attracted to her.  
The two discuss that the Kimmer clan are stockier than they look at first, and then tell them what weight allowances they'll have for the shuttle. Kimmer dismisses his daughters to go get things ready for the trip.

> "Be damned grateful we're getting off this frigging forsaken mudball," Kimmer said angrily, rising to his feet. "Go on, now, sort out what you've got to bring but keep it to the weight limit. Hear me?"  
>  The women removed themselves, with Faith casting one last despairing glance over her shoulder at her father. Benden wondered why he had thought any of them graceful. They waddled in a most ungainly fashion.

I know this is a fairly standard story trope, that once a man learns the alignment of a woman, they suddenly stop finding them attractive, but that just means I wish it would go away instead of being replayed endlessly. Also, this seems to have a little bit of a hint of "no fatties" with it that I can't really untangle. In any case, it really rings of "oh, they were pretty before we found out they're pretty devoted to someone we don't like. Now they're ugly."

Kimmer tells the same story that Shensu did about why there are no survivors, but adds in the details that the ships that were in the harbor were Tillek's, and so he must be dead because he would never abandon ships. Kimmer insists there can't be anyone else because their instruments didn't pick up anything, and that the best thing to do for the planet is to declare it uninhabitable. Before loaning Benden his sled to take a good look at the colony ruins, and then other stakes and locations, since they have power packs that can run the sled now. There's still a lot of Kimmer insisting that he's done everything he could to find survivors - to the point that it seems like a Suspiciously Specific Denial to have had so much text spent on it. While Benden is away, the caverns are just about finished packing up, although ni Morgana has suspicions of Kimmer's daughters being up to something, something more than just stripping the cavern bare to bring stuff on the shuttle.

Benden is also apparently now on a first-name basis with ni Morgana, who has completed her research on Thread and whose suspicions are related to the fact that nobody standing watch on the shuttle has been able to stay awake during their watches, they all have headaches as if they'd been drugged, and the daughters are all exhausted and incredibly jumpy. It's understandable that they don't know about fellis and what it does, and how easily it can be disguised in other things so that it will be easier for Kimmer and clan to possibly steal the shuttle in its entirety and leave the rescue team behind, or to load it down with extra weight of some sort. They can't have confirmed suspicions, though, because all the times that they scrupulously search everything, nothing out of the ordinary appears.

After a final feast, the shuttle lifts off for its intended rendezvous, only for it to be far too heavy (nearly 500 kilograms too heavy) to hit the right point and forcing Benden to insist on a slingshot course with the gravity wells of other planets in the system. Benden figures out how the excess weight got there, naturally.

> "What I can't understand," Ni Morgana said in a flat voice, "is what they could have smuggled aboard. Or how?"  
>  "What about your headaches, Saraidh?" Benden asked, seething with anger at Kimmer's duplicity. "And those catnaps no one else's had the guts to report to me."  
>  "What could they possibly have done in ten or twenty minutes, Ross?" Ni Morgana demanded. "Nev and I searched for any possibly smuggled goods or tampering."  
>  Benden pointedly said nothing and then scrubbed at his face in frustration. "Oh, it's no blame to you, Saraidh. Kimmer just outsmarted me, that's all. I thought removing him from Honshu would solve the problem." He raised his voice. "Vartry, you, Scag, and Hemlet will conduct a search of the most unlikely places in this ship: the missile bins, the head, the inner hull, the airlock. Somehow they've overloaded us, and we have got to know what with and dump it!"

Lieutenant Benden, perhaps you could do a little less male angst and condescension toward ni Morgana and a little more _fixing the problem_. Cue the arrival of Stev Kimmer and the obvious knowledge that something is up from the apparently unceasing wails of Kimmer's children. Kimmer suggests that there is weight to be lightened, with "malevolence in the gaze", but Benden counters that Kimmer can "take a long step out a short airlock" if he doesn't give up where the extra weight is. A short frisk reveals the entire Kimmer clan is clad in gold (which explains their excess weight when they were figured), but that's not enough weight to account for everything. Benden explains to the now naked Kimmer that the only way everyone survives is by jettisoning the excess mass, because the cruiser can't be raised and the current course means death to everyone.

This is the third time there's been a plot involving a ship, precious metals and gems, and the likelihood that someone is going to die - Avril failed, Lemos and Nabol failed, and now, unless something happens soon, Kimmer's going to bite it as well. The narrative is two for two so far in killing people who want to get away. You'd think Kimmer would have gotten wise, but apparently that's not the case.

> Benden hustled the naked, barefooted colonist down the companionway to the airlock and, palming the control for the inner hatch, shoved him inside, motioned for Greene to throw in the gold, and closed the hatch again.  
>  "I mean it, Kimmer, either tell me what else is on board and where, or you go out the airlock."  
>  Kimmer turned, a contemptuous expression on his face, and he folded his arms across his chest, a gaunt old man with only defiance to clothe him.  
>  [...Kimmer believes it's a bluff...]  
>  "I'll have taken a Benden down with me," the man snarled, his face contorted with hatred and sheer malevolence.  
>  "But Chio, and your daughters, your grandchildren-"  
>  "They were none of them worth the effort I put into them," Kimmer replied arrogantly. "I have to share my wealth with them, but I'm certainly not sharing it with you."

And Kimmer reminds us that he has always been about advancing himself at the expense of others, even to the point where those people die. And yet, somehow manages to have the luck of being indispensable to the people most likely to off him if they get the chance. Are we being wound up so that the eventual payoff is supposed to feel better? If so, the only reason going for that is that Kimmer keeps managing to avoid what should have rightly killed him.

ni Morgana pulls Benden back from the airlock, and explains to him what the extra weight is, having extracted it from one of the daughters using scopalamine as a truth serum. Platinum and germanium are stashed all over the ship in thin sheets and rolls everywhere, which, as they are found, are summarily piled up to be ejected from the ship. At which point, Benden notices the airlock is empty and immediately heads down to the Fusaiyuki clan to ask which one of them committed murder by spacing Kimmer. Nobody admits to it, and once all the extra weight is found, it is summarily tossed out the airlock, and the shuttle is able to course correct. The immediate threat disposed of, the crew of the ship now have the arduous task of reassuring the surviving daughters that they will not be reduced to poverty because of their rescue, from both the black diamonds they have and the money they'll make by selling numbweed salve to the worlds of the FSP. In turn, the daughters and women reveal that Kimmer regularly impregnated Ito and Chio, the latter "two months after she became a woman".

_[There's a cocowhat here. And an additional loud profanity that wasn't present in the original.]_

That seems like am unnecessary detail to lay out, unless one believes the readers may be sympathetic to Kimmer's death. He's greedy, he's endangered others, he's always escaped problems, and he's clearly not been a good patriarch of the Hold he took over. That he also is fathering children with women who are probably not done developing yet, if we take "became a woman" to mean "first menstruation", only makes him that much more of a reprehensible human being.

This would have been the detail to leave earlier in the narrative to ensure that everyone knows Stev Kimmer is horrible and should not be allowed to escape again.

_[As the comments point out, this gives us even more reason to wonder how or why Stev Kimmer hasn't already been knifed or staked out for Thread to eat, especially by the Fusaiyuki brothers, who presumably want to protect their sister from nonconsensual advances from Kimmer. And, given the way that he treats his daughters, orders them around and is otherwise an insufferable asshole, I wouldn't be surprised is his daughters are to the point where they might not actively help with the assassination of their father, they might not be surprised or engage in that much grief if he does end up inexplicably dead. After Stev Kimmer gets spaced, his daughters spend much more tears concerned for their own safety and whether or not they're going to be collectively punished for the sins of their father, rather than grieving the loss of their father. So there's that. This particular story doesn't work, the way it's been laid out, because it essentially requires Stev Kimmer, even in his 80s and 90s, to be such a force of terror that nobody does anything against him, despite the barely-disguised hostility on display, including at the points in which he assaulted Ito and Chio. Like, there are a lot of things that people will put up with, but sexual assault, and especially of family, tends to be one of those that results in a swift trip to the grave. There's no magic, no wealth, no threat, **nothing** that Stev Kimmer could do or say that would stave off his swift death. Or, at the very least, several, possibly ongoing, attempts on his life in revenge._

_But, of course, logic such as this is always subordinate and sacrificed to the needs of plot, along with all the other necessary logic that has to be ignored to make this dramatic situation happen in the first place. The commentary on the original was particularly vicious about the levels of incompetence necessary for this plot to happen, both on the Pernese and the FSP end. There's a lot.]_

As things are, communication with the cruiser and the refiguring of trajectories requires both shedding more weight and a thrust blast that will knock out the entire crew of the shuttle to successfully get them enough velocity to make a meeting. Which happens after almost two weeks of drift, and then there's two more weeks of drift afterward, which gets all the supplies down to the point of the emergency rations. Then one last burst to exhaust all the fuel on the shuttle, but it's enough to ensure that everyone aboard gets back to their ship. The entire Rukbat system gets an official designation of uninhabitable and uninhabited, officially interdict, leaving the colonists that remain to live their lives for generations in peace. Everyone's official report will say that Stev Kimmer killed himself once he knew his plan was finished. And that's it, the this chronicle and for the book itself.

Which means...that was a filler story. The only real connection it has to Pern are the characters' names. Otherwise, it didn't do anything other than tell us about the eventual end of Stev Kimmer. And even then, it was another plot involving gems and shuttles and the near destruction of both, while the character that was avaricious ended up dead and their wealth scattered somewhere that couldn't be retrieved. I'd almost say the narrative had a moral to teach in all of these sequences.

I'm also surprised at how easily the rescuers were convinced that there wasn't anyone else there, because a civilization as advanced as the FSP surely has things like ground-penetrating radar on their sensor packages, such that they could bathe the planet in signals and see that the North was clearly inhabited by something giving off a big ping - or that the presence of the dragons would set off a thermal sensor somewhere. 

Furthermore, this was the longest of the stories collected in here, so it was the biggest waste of time. I feel very unhappy at having spent all this time reading a story that turns out not to be about anything at all. I suspect even some of the bigger fans of Pern were sorely disappointed at this one.


End file.
